Apple Watch vs Garmin for sleep and health tracking

Both promise to tell you how well you slept and how your body's holding up. Here's how the actual features compare, and which one gives you data worth acting on.

The short version

Apple Watch (Series 11 specifically) has pulled ahead on clinical-style health features — ECG, hypertension notifications and a genuinely useful Vitals overview. Garmin remains stronger on continuous, sports-oriented health metrics like stress tracking, Body Battery and training-linked recovery data. Neither watch replaces a doctor, but both are more capable than most people realise if you actually open the apps.

Sleep tracking: staging vs scoring

Apple Watch sleep tracking (Series 11, Ultra 3 and SE 3) covers sleep stages — REM, Core, Deep and Awake — plus a nightly Sleep Score, sleep apnoea notifications, and overnight respiratory rate and wrist temperature via the Vitals app. Garmin's sleep tracking adds a Sleep Score too, but pairs it with Sleep Coach, which gives a personalised recommendation for how much sleep you need based on recent activity and recovery, not just a static score. Garmin's Pulse Ox monitoring also runs overnight by default on most models, which can flag irregular breathing patterns.

Stress and recovery

• Apple Watch — Mindfulness app reminders, heart rate-based stress signals surfaced in the Health app, but no single unified daily "readiness" score.
• Garmin — Body Battery (a 0-100 energy score based on HRV, sleep, stress and activity), all-day stress tracking with a simple low/medium/high graph, and recovery time estimates tied directly to your training load.

Garmin's Body Battery is arguably its most-loved feature outside of core fitness tracking — it turns a pile of sensor data into one number people actually check every morning. Apple has nothing that directly competes with it yet.

Blood oxygen and respiratory tracking

Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3 both include blood oxygen (SpO2) readings for wellness purposes, viewable in the Vitals app alongside overnight respiratory rate. Garmin's Pulse Ox sensor does similar overnight and on-demand blood oxygen readings across most current models including Instinct 3, Venu 4 and Fenix 8 — arguably more consistently available across Garmin's lineup than Apple restricting the feature to its two priciest watches.

The verdict

If heart health screening is your priority — ECG, irregular rhythm alerts, hypertension notifications — Apple Watch Series 11 is ahead of anything Garmin currently offers at a comparable price. If you want a daily, actionable read on stress and energy levels that actually changes how you plan your day, plus consistent SpO2 tracking across cheaper models too — Garmin's Body Battery ecosystem is the more genuinely useful day-to-day tool, especially once you're used to checking it each morning.